Getty Museum

Michael Kelly, Cobbler, Ennis, County Clare, Ireland

Date

1954

Medium

Gelatin silver print

Culture

American

Department

Photographs

Institution

Getty Museum

> In 1954 Dorothea Lange traveled to Ireland with her son Daniel Dixon to make photographs for an article that was published the following year in *Life* as "Irish Country People." The trip and article were prompted by her close reading of a 1937 by the Harvard anthropologist Conrad M. Arensberg, who collected six lectures under the title *The Irish Countryman*. Arensberg based his findings on time spent in the village of Luogh in County Clare. The four aspects of Ireland that interested Arensberg, the anthropologist, probably motivated Dorothea Lange, the longtime observer of human behavior, to propose the photographic project to *Life* as something the public would enjoy. It was first of all an ancient land that possessed the remains of the Celtic world and continued to practice old ways. It was known as the "land of the devout," with religious belief an important part of daily existence. It was also a place where life was hard, arduous work was necessary, and bleak realities had to be faced. This aspect, in combination with the wit and good nature that existed in spite of it, may have been what inspired Lange's best pictures and made her time there satisfying. During her two months in Ireland, Lange photographed in Ennis, the seat of County Clare, as well as in the countryside. Adapted from Judith Keller, *Dorothea Lange,* In Focus: Photographs from the J. Paul Getty Museum (Los Angeles: J. Paul Getty Museum, 2002), p. 70 and 72. © 2002 J. Paul Getty Trust.

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